Kevin Volans' String Quartet No. 9: Shiva Dances was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and first performed by the Smith Quartet at the 2004 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.Kevin Volans (the composer) notes on the piece:In the past I have been interested in trying to go beyond historicism (1970s) beyond style(1980s) and beyond form (1990s) in my work. Looking back over the music of the twentiethcentury I was struck by the fact the nearlyall of it is extremely 'busy' almost cluttered. Italmost seemed that composers felt compelled to look industrious. In the new millennium Ithought it would be interesting to try and eliminate content. I also aspired to movingfrommusic (sound as art) to art (art as sound). This of course has already been done by a numberof composers (many from New York Phil Niblock and La Monte Young to name but two) butit was something I had never tried.AlthoughI found it annoying that the label 'minimalist' was given to my African-based work and fearing this would make the label stick I set out to write a piece which reflected my loveof minimal painting and architecture. The Japanesehave a term 'wabi' meaning 'voluntarypoverty' or 'emptiness' to describe their restrained minimal aesthetic an aesthetic which however pays greatest attention to the quality of material and fine detail. I like to think thatthelack of excessive pitch material in this piece reflects a kind of voluntary poverty.When Shiva is portrayed dancing (as Nataraj) He is depicted in a circle of flames crushing asmall figure the ego underfoot.You get theimpression He dances on the spot not movingaround at all. I like that.The piece is dedicated to Pablo Pascual Cilleruelo.

Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. Bach would almost certainly have approved of this arrangement of his organ work (BWV 582) for string quartet by John Cooley, as it conveniently has four contrapuntal parts, and he was well known for making arrangements of his own works, according to instrumental resources at his disposal. Moreover, the parts mostly fit well within the ranges of violin, viola and cello, although notes have been raised by an octave in a few places. This quartet version is therefore simply the four parts written out separately, following Bach?s original version note for note. It is quite ?notey? but straightforward and accessible technically to reasonably good players as there are no tricky rhythms or high notes. As well as this organ piece arrangement, SJ Music has also published John Cooley?s arrangements of Mozart?s piano duets K497 and K521 for piano trio and piano quartet respectively, Bach?s concerto for violin and oboe for string quartet, and one of Purcell?s trio sonatas for string trio. / Date parution : 2022-03-16/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes

Holmboe's last quartet work which is unoffi­cially also String Quartet No. 21 was the last work he ever composed and was unfinished on his death in 1996. His pupil Per Nørgård has finished the quartet and himself characterizes his contribution by saying that the score existed “in an only partly completed form which could however be written out with only a few cases of doubt”. With only two movements and a play­ing time of about nine minutes it is at its exist­ing length the shortest of Holmboe's string quar­tets. The first movement takes the form of one long arch in a rocking triple time which constantly shiftsamong different tempo and pulse sensations. At the same time the rhythmic en­ergy increases until the movement in a faster Con moto tempo accelerates to a more flowing 12/8 time coloured both rhythmically by cross-­rhythms in duple time and timbrally by harmon­ics in the viola. In its middle section Con fuoco the movement culminates in both tempo and expression until it falls calm in brief recapitula­tions in reverse order of the first two sections. The rocking feeling continues in the second movement but now at a more extroverted level from the outset Allegro and pizzicato. The en­ergy builds up further as the mood intensifies to Con fuoco while all instruments go over to bowed playing but like the first movement this movement ends Adagio here however not as a gradual attenuation but through a sudden shift in tempo to a calm imitative passage before the movement slowly thins out to the almost inaudible through a last dense open sounding chord with a brief violin solo above it. The quartet is dedicated to Holmboe's wife MeLa May Holmboe and was given its first performance by the Kontra Quartet on 22nd March 1997 at the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music in Odense Denmark.

The second string quartet by Philip Glass is a lyrical almost romantic piece with strong prominant melodies and deceptively simplistic arrangement that reflects his pioneering minimal compositions. The piece began life as a scorefor Mabou Mines the New York theater company that counted him as 'unofficial' composer for almost three decades and the name comes from the Samuel Beckett play Company.

Dedicated to Thurston Dart Michael Nyman?s professor at King?s College London much of String Quartet No. 1 borrows and is inspired by the works of seventeenth century composer John Bull whosecomplete keyboard works Dart gave Nyman as a birthday present. The other main source of inspiration was Schöneberg?s Second String Quartet from the early 20th century.In his introduction to the piece Nymandescribes his two background ideas when composing the work: first to make an almost ?orchestral? chamber music and second to exorcise the impressive and oppressive history of the String quartet by making his work a compendium ofquotations from the quartet repertoire. Commissioned by the Arditti Quartet and first performed by them in 1985 String Quartet No. 1 has a duration of 25:44 minutes.Michael Nyman is an Englishcomposer of minimalist music pianist librettist and musicologist known for numerous film and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to ?The Piano?. He has additionally written a number of operas six concerti four stringquartets and many other chamber works.